Home sweet home: Pandas return four years after China quake

A giant panda is seen on a tree at the new base of the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda in Wolong, Sichuan province, on October 30, 2012.

Pandas displaced after an earthquake struck their reserve in 2008 have begun to return home.

The first batch of 18 pandas moved into the new base of the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda on Tuesday, according to local media reports cited by Reuters. They had been relocated following the 2008 Sichuan earthquake which devastated the famed Wolong reserve, one of the earliest research bases set up by the Chinese government in the early 1980s.

June 17, 2008: The epicenter of China's massive earthquake was 15 miles from one of the last habitats for the giant panda, China's beloved national symbol. NBC's Mark Mullen offers a status report on the survivors.